1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrostatic recording apparatus. More specifically, the present invention relates to an electrostatic recording apparatus which can feed a toner stored in a toner hopper into a developing apparatus at any time.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the conventional electrophotographic copying machine using the toner (for example, the electrophotographic copier Model "SF-741" manufactured by Sharp Corporation), a key such as a toner button dedicated to command of feeding the toner from the toner hopper to the developing apparatus is installed in addition to the normal operating keys.
Usually, the toner is fed automatically to the developing apparatus and is not fed by an operation of the operator, being fed forcedly by the operator only in the case where the toner is not fed properly to the developing apparatus for some reason. Accordingly, the exclusive key as described above is scarcely used. However, the situation may still arise where it is necessary for the machine operator to feed toner to the developing apparatus manually, and therefore this key cannot be completely eliminated and presently a key dedicated to this function must be installed, which will increase the cost of the machine.
As described above, conventionally, the apparatuses have suffered from cost increases because of installing the key dedicated to feeding the toner to the developing apparatus.
Also, when the key is dedicated to feeding the toner is installed, the operator or the like may touch the key by mistake and thereby an even larger amount of toner than required for the developing apparatus is fed and resultingly a so-called "fogging" might occur.